Not all of Namie-machi is captured yet, but here it is. There is no one there, and houses and stores are broken, deserted; there is nothing left in the farmland along the coast. In the center of the town, there are stores side by side, one utterly collapsed, the other seemingly intact.

I don't know if Google Japan plans to send people to the high radiation spots within Namie-machi, such as Akougi and Tsushima.

There are many in Japan who seems to think anything done by a company based in the US has something to do with "conspiracy" to defraud Japan. According to such people, the reason why Google Japan has already started showing the Street View (they said it would take a few months) is because the mayor of Namie-machi has sided with the national government, so all the goodies like Google Street View will be quickly done, as some kind of perks.

Sided with the national government? It seems that for such people, having to agree to the reorganization of the no-entry zone into three new zones in preparation for future return (as if these mayors have any choice), as pushed by the national government, is the same as colluding with the national government.

I thought of responding to someone who clearly seems to think that way, but then I looked at the desolation captured by the Street View. I'd rather thank Google instead. Thank you.

Well, I really feel that the desolation captured is both the one of the earthquake and of the tsunami. Even without the nuclear plant, all the area would be in a pretty bad shape.

Strange to see (very near the location selected by ex-skf above) what appears to be a surprising house on stilt, until you realise actually its ground floor has been washed away, transforming into stilts the concrete pillars that are all what is left from it, with the first floor almost intact.

laprimavera, I see. I guess I check 2ch too much. Right wingers there always seem to find a way to blame the Japanese Koreans for everything, but I wouldn't consider them anything else than a fringe minority of really sad individuals.

Anon at 9:38PM, if ANA ads on google is any indication, the whole nation is made up of a "fringe minority" at this point.

But 2ch is really something. This intense hatred for Korea and Koreans (in Korea or in Japan) wasn't there when I was growing up. I think it's the past 10 years or so. I was really shocked when the Korean Japanese archer won the bronze medal for Japan in London Olympic and she was trashed by the Japanese.

yeah loads of hate in japan for korea and china, its basically racism and bad blood, the japanese find it impossible to look in the mirror of how fucked up their culture really is so they point the finger at outsiders...

Hatred for the zainichi has always been there, probably depending if there was a big korean community in your city. Internet just made it visible. Just read any Japanese Korean author: http://japanfocus.org/-John-Lie/2939 The same for the discrimination toward the Burakumin, which is even more difficult to understand for a foreigner, I guess.

Anon at 2:07, your ability to see other society's problems but not your own sounds awfully like racism to me.

Japanese call it "leh-shizumu" (racism; there is no "r" pronunciation in Japanese unless it's a rolled "r" in Edo dialect), without fully knowing what the hell that means. I can pronounce "r", I can do a rolled "r" as a true Edokko, but I don't know what they mean by racism any more.

People I follow on Twitter may be an odd assortment of people. I don't know who "normal" people are any more. I don't know about Aum Shinrikyo. If you mean people with cult-like followers, then again that's nothing new in Japan. Many people just love to have someone who thinks for them, so that they don't need to worry about thinking on their own and taking responsibility for their own thinking.

Racism, xenophobia, call it whatever you like. It's the ability to blame a single community of being the cause of very complex problems, usually because acting otherwise would require a great deal of analysis and/or self-criticism.

It can be the Jews, the US, the illuminati, the Japanese Koreans or the blacks. The question is blaming "others," blaming "them." This way of thinking is very comforting, since it prevents the speaker from having to consider his or her responsibility and at the same time triggers the us-versus-them tribal response.

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

About This Site

Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

Along with commentary on day's financial news, it also provides links to the sites with financial and economic news, market data, stock technical analysis, and other relevant information that could potentially affect the financial markets and beyond.

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